After the Fade to Black Season 1
by mtsuzie
Summary: One shots following the end of each episode. Season 1
1. Watching

Watching

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I do not own NCIS: LA

#1 in the After the Fade to Black series

Tag to Legend Part 1

Pre-Series

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Laura Macy always thought the last 30 seconds before you met your target when you were undercover were the hardest. Callen had laughed at that said that he thought the hardest part was the 5 minutes before you knew the cavalry was coming through the door and acting like you didn't.

She and Hetty had talked about the difference before and Hetty had told her it was most likely because she did not view her whole life as "just a cover".

" _Laura, Callen knows next to nothing about his life before he was five_ ," Hetty had said, " _and because of that he spent most of his childhood being whoever he wanted, changing it as many times as he wanted. It is why he is so good at it._ "

But for Mace, standing in OPS wanting for the knock on the door, not knowing who or what would be on the other side was the hard part. Having Gibbs here looking over her shoulder was not helping either. He was one of Callen's oldest friends and one of the few he considered family.

Over the com Mace heard the knock they had been waiting for.

Showtime.


	2. Waiting

Waiting

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I do not own NCIS: LA

#2 in the After the Fade to Black

Tag to Legend Part 2

Pre-Series

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Eric had called the ambulance after Sam's frantic order and then pulled up the traffic cams to watch. Seeing Callen bleeding and barely breathing shocked him.

He heard Kensi's gasp and watched Mace turn to call someone. Most likely it was Hetty, who would then call the Director.

Eric returned his focus to the cameras hoping and praying that his friend would be OK, that they would not lose him on the sidewalk in Venice Beach today.

* * *

 **3 weeks later**

 _Pain._

It was the first thing Callen noticed as he woke. He _hurt_. Everywhere.

 _Why?_

Then the memories started to come back. The Russian girl. The sequel of tires. Seeing the van. Gunshots. Feeling the bullets hit. Sam calling his name then demanding Eric send an ambulance. Trying to breath. Blackness.

He heard someone move and opened his eyes. It was Eric. "Callen, you awake for real this time?"

"How long?" G managed to gasp.

"Three weeks," Eric answered. "You coded twice in ambulance and five times on the table before they got enough blood back in you. You got hit five times. Hetty's been handling the doctors. Nate been handling Sam. Mace left last week for D.C. and didn't come back. Agent Gibbs calls every day for an update. Oh, and Kensi nearly killed a nurse she overheard saying that you must be some drug dealer to get shot in a drive buy…"

Callen gave a small grin as Eric rambled on about everything that had happened in the last three weeks.

He was alive.

Everyone else was fine.

He worry about anything else later. After all if Hetty was here there really was nothing to worry about any way.


	3. The Man versus The Mask

The man versus the mask

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I do not own NCIS: LA

#3 in the After the Fade to Black series

Tag to Identity

Season 1 Episode 1

Four months after Legend Part 2

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.

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 _In three years you never once called me G._

 _That because it's not a name it's a letter. Now if you were to tell me what the G stood for?_

 _I don't know. Nobody ever told me._

 _\- Hetty and Callen, Identity_

 _._

 _._

 _I hate paperwork._

Paperwork gave you time to think even and most especially when you didn't want to think.

G Callen finished his expense reports for Hetty and laid down on the couch, replaying the case in his head. They had solved the murder, found the girl, ensured the raid wasn't compromised, and got the bad guys.

G was glad it was over. For a first case back it wasn't ideal. Thankfully, Sam hadn't seemed to notice the flashbacks during the shoot out or at the house.

Nate had been pestering him about his quarterly psych eval already and it wasn't even for a month. Sometimes G wondered if Nate was really as oblivious as he seemed. G could tell Nate was worried about him even if he was less in your face about as Sam was or as motherly about as Hetty.

G really did not want Nate after him about this. The panic attacks were gone, the flashbacks were down to only happening when there was a gun in his face, but the paranoia was at an all time high. Which was why he moved every other week no matter what lame ass excuse he gave Sam. He still felt like someone was watching him.

He liked Nate he really did, but G didn't like his own head sometime he sure as hell didn't want Nate in there poking around and bringing up something he hid for a reason. If he lost it on Nate, Hetty would pull him faster than his head could spin.

 _I wonder what Nate would make of the fact that I sleep with my gun under my pillow even in OPS. I know Hetty will kill me if I accidentally shoot something after waking up from one of my nightmares._

Nightmares were the reason G didn't sleep more than 40 to 60 minutes at a time. Everyone thought it was because he had insomnia. He fell asleep fine but after the first nightmare woke him he had no chance of sleeping until his awake brain convinced his subconscious it was really just a dream.

This case would cause some nightmares for sure. A father kidnapping his daughter to leverage his brother-in-law of information on the raids against the drug cartels in Mexico. The father was a man behind a mask. He had fooled everyone for years.

G wonder who really knew him. What most people saw every day was just a persona, a mask to keep people at arm's length. Some days he wondered if he had lost himself to the mask he showed the outside world.

 _How many masks must wear before you do not recognize yourself any more. One hundred? Four hundred?_

In the records department for the DEA there are two filing cabinets full of alias for him. The FBI has forty five divers' licenses. The CIA has sixty-three complete lives. And at NCIS are 362 safety deposit-like boxes with alias for him. There are twenty-four identities that no one has record of that he has for himself if ever needs to disappear. Some were only used once for a few hours. Others were his cover for years.

G Callen is the best at undercover because he doesn't know who he is.


	4. Vengeance

Vengeance

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I do not own NCIS: LA

#4 in the After the Fade to Black

Tag to The Only Easy Day

Season 1 Episode 2

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 _._

 _._

 _The only easy day was yesterday._

 _\- Navy SEAL motto_

 _._

 _._

 _Thwack._

Sam Hanna hit the heavy bag in front of him trying to release the anger and tension that he had been feeling sense they had discovered that Holgate, Raspin, and Jackson had rob the drug dealer behind the drive-by that had killed their team mate.

 _Thwack._

Sam understood the need for vengeance. Kneeling on the sidewalk in Venice as G, his partner his brother, was bleeding out after being shot five times, vengeance had been secondary.

 _Thwack._

But as soon as they knew G would live, it had become almost all he thought about. When they didn't have active cases Sam was trying to find something, anything, that would help him find who tried to kill his partner.

 _Thwack._

However after the eighth time Hetty had found at mission at 3:30 in morning, she had set him down and reminded him of the difference between vengeance and justice. She had also told him quite bluntly that G would quite put out with having to break in a new partner if Sam did something stupid.

 _Thwack._

"Mr. Hanna, Mr. Callen needs you to get him back to work not get yourself in trouble trying to get revenge for him." Hetty had chastised him before sending him off with a stern warning that if she found in the mission that late again when they weren't on an active case she would stand him down for a month.

 _Thwack._

Sam chose that moment to look up and saw the tiny operations manager in front of as if his thoughts had summoned her. "Go home, Mr. Hanna, before Mr. Callen decides to shoot that thing." Hetty said giving him one of her probing, all-knowing looks. "You will find no answers hitting something no matter how cathartic it may make you feel."

"Fine, Hetty, I'm going."

"Mr. Hanna."

"Yes, Hetty?"

"Do remember, when you get upset with their actions, that talk we had a few months ago."

"I will."

Sam considered Hetty's words as he drove home, remembering something else she had told during that late night conversation almost four months ago.

 _Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves._

 _-Confucius_

 _Chinese philosopher & reformer (551 BC - 479 BC)_


	5. Reality

Reality

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I do not own NCIS: LA

#5 in the After the Fade to Black series

Tag to Predator

Season 1 Episode 3

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Dominic Vale wondered for what felt like the millionth time in the last few months why he taken this job. OSP rarely took anyone just out of FLETC, but Hetty had offered him the job right after he graduated.

The death of the kid had hit him hard. The others didn't seem nearly as effected as he did. Callen had taken him aside after the case was over and told him that it takes years to be able to compartmentalize everything that you in this job until you have the time to decompress.

Callen had told him to find something that lets him get it out of his system safely and then make a point to find time to do it often. "Everyone is different, Dom. Sam runs, Eric plays video games, Kensi shops or works on her car, Hetty reads, and I find a new language to learn or take things apart and put them back together." Callen had said. "When you find the thing that helps you sleep at night make time for it."

* * *

G Callen was worried about his newest and youngest agent. This was Dom's first assignment with NCIS and he had no field experience. OSP had the tendency to throw you in deep in to see if you could swim.

The kid had good instincts, was smart, fast on him feet, and willing to learn. But he was green. Very, very green. They had been so busy lately that there was barely time for paperwork, never mind training an agent with no field experience. Sam was responsible for training Dom, but Sam had a family that also needed his time. So G had started to take some of the basics and had Eric teach Dom everything about how the computer system worked in Ops.

None of that however was a substitute for field experience and today had just driven that point home. Hetty said she had found him upstairs beating the crap out of Sam's heavy bag and had tried to make him feel better. But she said that he saw through her attempt's.

 _I hope we can get him the training and experience he needs. Hetty isn't going to make it through losing another agent even if it has been almost ten years since Sullivan died._


	6. Damaged Goods

Damaged Goods

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I do not own NCIS: LA

#6 in the After the Fade to Black series

Tag to Search and Destroy

Season 1 Episode 4

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 _Callen- "Thought we were going all black?"_

 _Hetty- "Well sometimes damaged goods can actually be more valuable because of their unique qualities."_

 _Callen- "Is that right?"_

 _Hetty- "Umhum. Its a thought."_

 _-Hetty and Callen_

 _._

.

Driving home after finishing his report after he had let Flynn out on the side of the road, G considered how alike they were. He also wondered how he was going to teach Nate the art of tact. After he had a talk with Hetty about her dispensing of double meaning pieces of wisdom. At least she had agreed with him that Sam' origami 'swan' was really a duck.

Nate's profile of Flynn had been a little to pointe about his past. What he had said had made G want to hit him for the first time in almost three and half years. It had taken the first six months they had worked together to understand when to back off especially if they were not alone and this was the first time he had forgot.

Sometimes G wondered if the filter between Nate's brain and his mouth was absent. Nate would say things that could easily be misconstrued and not even notice until someone pointed it out to him. Nate can say whatever he wants about how his past affects him, he had a home and a family with NCIS.

G had let Flynn go because he when the man would be safer on his own than anywhere WitSec would put him. Flynn had made good point that people like them did this job so everyone else could life their lives without worry.

G might dream of having a family like Sam did but he was too much like Hetty, the job was his life and Sam, Kens, Eric, Nate, and Hetty were his family.


	7. Nemesis

Nemesis

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I do not own NCIS: LA

#7 in the After the Fade to Black Series

Tag to Killshot

Season 1 episode 5

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 _Hetty- "She your nemesis, Leon?"_

 _Vance- "Only if she buries me."_

 _Hetty- "Then we must insure that doesn't happen."_

 _Hetty and Vance- Killshot_

.

.

Prague.

Tokyo.

Sira Leon.

Paris.

New York City.

Five times before this they had met. Five times she had gotten away before. Six now. And this would be the last time. Hetty had passed on the information that Kie had not turned up in a hospital in LA. Now it was find her and end it.

* * *

(After NCIS episode Endgame)

Well it was over now. Kie has come to D.C. Had come after his family. Had come to him to get peace. He would have to thank Jackie later then make sure she was fine after all this. Maybe a vacation.

* * *

 _"After all to the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."_

 _Albus W. P. B. Dumbledore_

 _Harry Potter and Sorcerer's (Philosopher's) Stone_

 _J.K. Rowling_


End file.
